A sweet, cute, and entertaining sci-fi romance, The Stars Too Fondly is great if you want a light, sapphic love story set in space.

This book is like a ray of sunshine. It’s sweet, has a slow-burn forbidden romance that starts off almost like enemies to lovers, and it’s also sapphic. I found it quite cozy with its found family friendships. It has a very queer and diverse cast of characters, which I found lovely.

This book was quite delightful, though it has its issues. It took me a while to get used to the dialogue, as it’s very colloquial and quite twee, which made the characters feel far, far younger than they were. This was a bit disappointing because I was excited that the characters were in their late 20s and early 30s, not young adults, but they acted even younger at times, like teenagers. Then, strangely, the characters had interests that felt a bit anachronistic for the 2060s, like 90s movies - for comparison, do we in 2024 watch movies from the 50s regularly? I mean, aside from a few well-known quotes that have pervaded through time (like from Gone with the Wind), most people I know don't watch movies that old.

In the same breath, though, the dialogue did suit the tone of the book and helped you understand the friendship dynamic right away. It just took me about 20% to adapt to it.

I also enjoyed the love story - I’m always one for a forbidden romance - though it took a bit to get going as the tension wasn’t really there at the start. Eventually, it began to grow - this delay could also be because one was a hologram - but by around the one-third mark, I did begin to ship them and hoped for a happy resolution. I much prefer this slow and subtle build to the typical Romance subplots that throw sex and yearning at you the first ten pages in.

I also thought the concept was actually quite relevant today with the rise in AI programs designed for people to have romances with. This wasn't the same thing but had a similar vibe.

The writing itself was a little clunky. I did not mind the POV swapping at all—it was integral to understanding the hologram’s point of view—but there were just some rudimentary writing errors that might be resolved in the final printing (so I didn't count that towards my rating).

I will also say that this is barely a sci-fi. The science in this book is heavily cocooned in fantastical elements so that the end felt less like resolving a quantum predicament than the characters battling a wizard. Had this been a straight-up sci-fi, I would have railed against this, but because it’s a Romance first and sci-fi second, it didn’t really bother me - I just went with it. I thought a lot of the plot points or devices were silly, but they also fit the tone of the novel. The plot made sense, even if the mechanics around the science felt a bit fantastical.

This might seem like a lot of critique, but truthfully, I enjoyed the novel and thought it was a lot of fun!

Oh man, I loved this book. It was soft and loving and bright and adventurous and surprised me in a wonderful way at several key moments. I will be looking forward to everything Hamilton writes. A brilliant debut.

This book felt very YA. overall that isn’t a bad thing. However when it’s not what I’m expecting, it reduces my enjoyment.

A fun little space opera romp. Fell in love with the captain myself. Quite fun and engaging.
Highly recommend!

This book has big Star Trek vibes. I mean that in the best way. It's science fiction in the way Star Trek is. A little science and a lot of science magic. It also has four friends who accidentally steal a spaceship, a hologram with emotions, dark matter, and mysterious forces. There's a group of really smart people trying to solve a really hard problem in the face of very difficult obstacles.

It's written with a lot of humor and accessibility. I'd DNF'd a couple books right before this, and it was such a relief to slide into something FUN. And funny. And, whoops, who accidentally steals a spaceship?

Why doesn't this get five stars? The very ending, while kind of expected, felt a little too easy to me. And I felt weird about the complications in the human-hologram relationship, particularly some proposals near the end of the book. If that's confusing and vague, well I'm trying not to be too spoiler-y.

But I am here for a space romp full of friendship and love. I look forward to Emily's next book!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

2SLGBTQIA+ Science Fiction Romance set in 2061 that follows a computer engineer and her friends who accidentally launch a spaceship and with the missing captain's hologram's help must uncover old mysteries.

5/5 stars: Hamilton's 2SLGBTQIA+ Sci-Fi Romance that's set in near future 2061 which features a computer engineer and her three friends who are determined to uncover what happened twenty years ago when the entire crew of a landmark mission disappeared and the entire programs shut down. But after they accidentally launch the spaceship and are in route into deep space they must uncover old mysteries, figure out a way home and navigate strange new powers all while dealing with the snarky hologram of the original mission's missing captain. Hamilton's writing and character work is stellar; the characters are well-rounded, complex and yet remain incredibly likable. Cleo's smart and tough and I very much want to be her friend. Billie's great, tough too but fragile and fallible. Cleo's friends and accidental shipmates, Kaleisha, Abe and Ros' are incredible. Oh and the slow burn (90%) OPS scene's deliciously steamy and the romance is delightfully swoony. Hamilton touches on some serious subjects; so take care and check the CWs. You won't want to miss this terrific read, highly recommend!

I received this eARC thanks to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager, Harper Voyager in exchange for an honest review. Publishing dates are subject to change.

The Stars Too Fondly follows a group of four friends who accidentally launch themselves into space and have to solve a 20 year old mystery and maybe one accidentally falls in love with a hologram along the way.

This book had all the cozy vibes even though the stakes were actually quite huge. I loved the found family aspect of this one. A lot of times it's hard for me to feel invested in already established friend groups, but not with this one. It really felt like Cleo, Kal, Abe, and Ros had truly been friends for their entire lives. There was a lot more to this story than I expected. Emily Hamilton described everything in this story clearly and it was pretty easy to follow all the complex things that were happening throughout the plot.

My only issue was the romance. I really wanted to love it and at the end I could see why Cleo and Billie were perfect for each other. However, I needed more build-up and more interactions between them at the beginning that would have made me root for them more. It made it feel almost like insta-love when they finally announced their feelings for each other because of the lack of emotional build-up. If this part of the story was a little more fleshed out, this might have been a 5-star read for me.

Overall, I can't wait to see what else Emily Hamilton comes out with because I would absolutely check it out.

Wow, this book was such a fun surprise. It was a bit like an episode of Dr. Who. There are big universe ending stakes and yet it's still funny and light-hearted.

Everything about this book just worked for me - the friendships, the romance, the story. Seriously, all of it. I love stories where friendships are front and center. This story heavily leans on the strength of the friendships to get them through and it's very heartwarming. And the romance is a bit of a slow burn and very tender and it took me by surprise how invested I became.

I can't wait for publication day, so I can go back for a re-read with the audiobook! I think this is going to become a comfort read for me.

Cleo and her friends want to solve the mysterious disappearance of the Providence crew, so they break into the abandoned spaceship. When the dark-matter engine starts on its own, they have to find a way to survive and return to Earth. But as Cleo interacts with the hologram of Billie, the missing ship captain, their combative banter turns into something deeper…

The mystery was interesting and unraveled at a fair pace. Cleo and Billie’s banter was fun but felt young, and their developing relationship was slow and vulnerable. Found family was central to the story.

This book felt more like a cozy rom-com in tone and content than sci-fi romance. The science was confusing at times and after some unique abilities developed in the characters, it felt more like science fantasy.

It was difficult to get into a rhythm because the unfolding action alternated with electronic messages, backstory passages in a variety of formats, and a separate POV not identified until partway through.

Overall, this was a light, quirky story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for the ARC.

This SF novel missed the mark for me, despite a fun set-up: a group of friends explore an old spaceship with a crew that had mysteriously disappeared twenty years earlier, and the ship is accidentally launched for a distant planet. Despite the characters being in their late twenties, this had a very strong YA vibe to it, and a young YA at that, which was part of why it didn't work for me. I actually had to flip back and double check the ages because it was so incongruous. This is a very dialogue-heavy book, and I felt like the characters' depth suffered because of it, not to mention that the romance didn't play at all when the reader never got to see the romance actually develop. When you have a human-hologram romance, you need to really develop to make it believable in any way. Add in a lot of science-y passages contrasted with an utter disregard for science when something was needed for plot purposes, and I just struggled my way through this one. Thank you to NetGalley, Avon, and Harper Voyager for a digital review copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was marketed as a spacemance aka space romance which was the “lesser known cousin of romantasy” so I was led to believe this was a sci fi romance but as I read this book, it was giving more sci fi conspiracy mystery.

The romance felt lacking like I feel the relationship was carried through banter which felt surface level as well. this was disappointing especially when i was excited for the sapphic romance.

also some plot holes were bothering me like the plot hole where a group of people (202 of them) which was essentially the next generation disappeared and no noise???? the book made it sound like this major newsworthy occurrence was just a footnote in history where people just grieved and move on like what?? no one questioned further about what happened. I felt like this moment was glossed over so quickly even though its such an important aspect in the story. I’m probably reading too much into it but it felt like the book did not emphasize or set the tone of this crazy moment correctly

The format of this book was so confusing and all over the place which took away from my enjoyment of the story. <b> there’s so much going on in this book but nothing was hooking me in </b> . . . the only reason I kept going was for the romance but even the romance felt forced to me and oddly juvenile even though the two characters are adults.

This one was a pretty mixed bag for me. There were things I enjoyed (the mystery kept me reading, some very funny lines, likable characters). And some plot elements that I didn’t love for subjective, taste reasons (super powers and “space magic” are not favorite tropes of mine).

But for me there were some authorial choices that just didn’t work, and these choices over time made the book completely fall apart by the end. My main quibble is that the book had a bit of an identity crisis. Other than the main characters’ ages (mid-late 20s) this really felt like a YA novel. I wish it had been--I think it would’ve been much more successful. Every relationship—from the friendship between the four main characters, to the romance, even to the brief mentions of parental relationships—felt very young and didn’t have the qualities of adult relationships. The romance especially felt like a first relationship between teenagers. Some of the plot turns also felt very YA (see: space magic). The villain’s motives were muddy and he was too much a generic super villain to be satisfying. The MC’s emotional growth entailed learning “it’s okay to talk about my feelings,” which again would make a lot more sense in a 15 year old. As an adult novel, it didn’t feel successful to me. The Illuminae Files is a YA series that nailed the space opera/romance I think this book was going for.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for providing an advanced copy.

This book was super cute and fast paced. A sci-fi book set in space, a group of four friends tries to solve the mystery of a failed launch of a spaceship to another planet 20 years prior that started and ended with the crew of 203 people vanishing into thin air.

Set over the course of roughly 60 (ish days), this is a fast paced read filled with friendship, love, and learning to face your fears and trauma.

There wasn't much meat to the book, but I enjoyed it, hence the 4 stars.

Thanks to Harper Voyager and Netgalley for an e-arc of this book!

I adored literally everything about this. I am a huge Trekkie and also a huge Star Trek Voyager fan and a queer woman, so it did feel like this book might have been made in a lab for me! As soon as the hologram appeared, I was like... LIKE VOYAGER... and then there were Voyager references, and Hamilton thanked Voyager in her acknowledgments, and I was just screaming!!!

Plot-wise, this is super interesting because it is only about 50 years in the future and, as such, deals with many incredibly relevant things to humans on Earth right now, like climate change and capitalism. It also felt grounded in the real world (ya know, minus the aliens, other planets, and superpowers), making it incredibly easy to get into and engage with. I found the story progression really fantastic, and it was such an easy and quick read because I was having so much fun! There are many twists and turns happening, which I mostly did not see coming, especially the big one, because I was so embedded in the story and our characters.

I loved our cast of characters, particularly our MC, Cleo, and found their emotions relatable and actions understandable. Cleo was a really fantastic character because of her "hero's journey" here, and I felt like her growth and emotional development were super well-earned.

Oh, Billie! I love you! Billie, both Holo and real, were so fun, and I really appreciated how their (hers? not sure how to say this) romance with Cleo played out, as well as the major twist of the voice of God narrator in this book, were super interesting. Her emotional growth was a particular highlight of the book and I loved her internal monologue when we got it.

Community was such an important part of this book: how we find community, how we care for our community, how we grow our community, how we protect our community, and more. It's such an important topic, and science fiction is one of the best places for that to play out in fiction, to me, so this book was such a joy, as our characters return to Earth with a hope they never had before.

I will absolutely be buying a copy of this when it comes out!

Giving this one a 4 out of 5. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Reading this book was an interesting experience, but in a (mostly) good way. The characters are more or less all in their mid-20s with advanced degrees in STEM, but in a lot of ways this story reads like a YA Sci-Fi. They have that quirky, cozy, queer friend-group vibe that is a delight to read. Very space opera-esque but still light and overall fluffy, where the stakes in theory should be high but at the end of the day aren't.

My main qualm is with Cleo and her romance with Billie. There is a lot of handwave-y aspects of the age difference between the two, but with the time skips that happen in the story, I just didn't find their romance believable. I wish we could've read more of their interactions that allow us to build up to their relationship. Despite this, there are some HEARTWRENCHING scenes between the two that pulled at my heartstrings.

Overall fun little read.

A fantastic debut! I am so impressed that this is a debut, really!

I thought the sci-fi elements were accessible to follow, even if you're not a seasoned sci-fi/fantasy reader. I loved the sapphic romance, and would have liked even more tense moments between them.

I loved this sci-fi space opera, and I will absolutely be reading more from Emily Hamilton in the future.

This is a book that is objectively pretty great – maybe even awesome – but isn’t quite for me.

I can’t point to anything being wrong with it, or done poorly; I pushed myself halfway through the book (instead of quitting at 20%, my typical cut-off point) because it is actually good. The writing and characters are all great. There’s no solid reason to DNF it.

I just…didn’t care. And that’s having read the three major revelations/twists in the first half, which turn The Stars Too Fondly into something VERY different from what I was expecting – and not a bad something! It’s very cool! I like being taken by surprise! The stakes become infinitely higher, and a whole host of new possibilities open up, making it (at least for me) impossible to predict where the story was going to go!

Lots of awesome, in other words!

But something was missing; I wasn’t connecting to any of the characters, I wasn’t invested in the plot, and even though I can see that objectively Revelation the Third is really exciting and unique and I have no idea what direction Hamilton’s going to take it in…I don’t care. I’m not interested, even though I really should be. This should tick so many boxes for me; I ought to be so excited by the worldbuilding and what Hamilton is going to do with it. And I’m just not.

I don’t know why. I do think the problem is probably me, not the book; I would happily recommend The Stars Too Fondly to a whole bunch of my friends, and I think many readers of my blog will love it. Hells, maybe I’LL love it, if I try again in a year or something; maybe I’m just in the wrong headspace right now, and I would love it if I read it at a different time. I hope so.

But at this time it’s a slog to get through, and I’m bored, and I’m tired. So. Call it a DNF-for-now, not a DNF-forever. I’ll cross my fingers. If it sounds interesting to you, I strongly encourage you to pick up a copy. But I’m putting mine aside.

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Voyager for the e-arc!
What an absolutely stunning sci-fi romance! Hamilton managed to weave a complex but easy-to-understand sci-fi with dark matter and crazy powers while still having an unbelievably tender and emotional romantic story. The general premise being four friends accidentally being launched into space where they discover a holographic version of Captain Lucas, the missing captain of the original expiration. As they continue on their journey through space and time, they learn more about why the original crew went missing and what secrets were being kept from the entire world about this journey.
Cleo and Billie's relationship is beautiful. It isn't perfect and they have to work to understand and accept each other and their circumstances. The entire cast of characters is put in this terrible situation, and they all have to work together to survive and help the lost crew. I think some of the fights/conflicts between some characters are done a bit too quickly. There were a few cases where characters would go from screaming and fighting with each other to immediately recognizing their issue and apologizing but I still thoroughly enjoyed the book.
Overall I could not put this down and highly recommend this if you are looking for a great sapphic romance!

3.5 stars!

Thank you to Emily Hamilton and Harper Voyager from this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Admittedly, I have very mixed feelings about this one. I requested this ARC because the premise made it seem like a sapphic version of The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer which I absolutely loved, and they are similar but not in the way that I was anticipating. Reading The Darkness Outside Us, I agreed with many reviewers that I thought it was mismarketed as a romance when the story really ends up feeling more like a conspiracy thriller with a romance subplot. The Stars Too Fondly is definitely more light-hearted than The Darkness Outside Us, but the mystery plotline is extremely prominent to the story. Just thought I'd note this so you know what you're getting into, especially if you're picking this up for the same reason I did.

First, let's look at the positives. The premise of the story is super interesting and generally well done, especially considering it's a debut. I liked the characters a lot and their development throughout the story felt pretty natural, including that of the antagonist. All of the transcripts and text conversations were a great addition and I liked how small aspects of the mystery were revealed through them. This is also a profoundly readable book, being entertaining as well as concise. I read pretty quickly, but I finished this one especially fast and it was a nice book to fall back on during exams. The story's message about the price of progress and ambition was well done if a bit heavy-handed. There are also some truly gorgeous lines in here, I highlighted quite a few.

Now for my issues. The dialog was so quippy that it feels forced at times, and the dialog is really the only thing contributing to comedy half of the rom-com so that whole aspect was pretty lost on me. The romance was fine but I feel like we didn't see enough direct interactions between Cleo and Billie for them to feel as strongly as they did. There are so many (necessary) time cuts that it feels like the reader is left to assume they were bonding more off-page. Other than those nice lines I mentioned earlier, the writing can be really juvenile at times. I'm not intensely against starting sentences with "And–" or "But–" but there are paragraphs here were every single line starts with that. If it weren't for the age of the characters and (fairly brief) sex scenes, I would have thought this was a YA novel, because the writing feels that way. Also, if you're looking for sci-fi with realistic or at least well-explained science, this isn't for you. Most weird things in the book, including superpowers, are just chalked up to dark matter without a lot of elaboration.

If you like YA sci-fi I think you'll like this, but I've heard it referred to as Becky Chambers meets Red, White & Royal Blue and that did not prove true for me at all. It's quite short and easy to read, so if it sounds up your alley giving it a shot won't be a waste of your time. It was just lacking in a lot of the areas where I was hoping for it to excel.

Happy reading!

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

The Stars Too Fondly is a queer, cozy sci-fi adventure. It follows Cleo and her group of loyal friends who investigate the remains of a spaceship that never took off and whose crew mysteriously vanished. When they are launched into space, they must solve the mystery of what happened to the crew before them. Along the way, Cleo befriends the ship’s AI and the crew must rally together if they ever want to return home.

The Stars Too Fondly has such a lovable and engaging crew. It feels like a more adult, queer, and cozy version of The Aurora Cycle. Cleo is such a strong and curious character, who is unstoppable once she sets her mind to it. Cleo’s relationship with Billie is very sweet and the ending was satisfying. While it has a cozy feel to it, the discussion of space and physics is fascinating and will inspire readers to wonder. The Stars Too Fondly is an excellent sci-fi adventure, with compelling queer characters, and I’d recommend it to anyone. Looking forward to seeing what Emily Hamilton writes next!

Thank you to Emily Hamilton, Harper Voyager, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Goodreads, Instagram, Storygraph, Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc.